A Scourge of Vipers (19 page)

“Blaming the zombie again, huh?” Wargart said. “Where did you stash the money, asshole?”

That rattled me. I nearly blurted out that McCracken could back up my story. But it wouldn't be right to involve him without making sure he was going to be okay with it. For now, I kept my hole card hidden and invoked my right to an attorney.

When Yolanda bustled in, she told the cops to get out and had me fill her in. Then she summoned Wargart and Freitas and demanded that they charge me or release me.

“We can hold him for twenty-four hours,” Freitas said.

So they stuck me in a holding cell till late the following afternoon.

*   *   *

When I finally got home, I found Joseph doing housework again.

“The cops?” I asked.

“Yeah. They showed me a search warrant and tossed the place. Threw stuff all over the fuckin' floors. Made a hell of a mess.”

“They take anything?”

“Your nine mil.”

“Anything else?”

“They took a grocery bag out of the bedroom, but I got no clue what was in it. What's going on, Mulligan?”

I spilled just enough to satisfy him.

Then I spent an hour trying to figure out what could have been in that grocery bag. Far as I could tell, the Kel-Tec was the only thing that was missing.

 

30

“I've been dreaming about us having breakfast together after a night of unbridled lust,” I said, “but fending off a gangbanger hell-bent on a jail-cell blowjob wasn't the lust I had in mind.”

“Are you okay?” Yolanda asked.

“Better than the gangbanger. He should see a dentist about those teeth.”

“Your meeting with Romeo Alfano didn't go as planned either,” she said.

“It didn't.”

We were seated in a booth at Charlie's, I with my customary bacon and eggs and Yolanda with a grapefruit half and a cup of coffee.

“One thing I'm not clear on,” she said. “Why did you tell Mario what Alfano was up to?”

“I wanted to drive a wedge between them. But I didn't figure on Mario whacking the guy.”

“Feeling guilty about that?”

“Not especially.”

“You have to promise me something.”

“What?”

“If you get picked up again, you'll call me immediately and not answer any more questions.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybes this time.”

“Okay. You win, Yolanda.”

“They ran ballistics on your pistol and determined it wasn't used to kill Alfano.”

“Good to know. Can you get it back for me?”

“I'm working on it. You know, for a newspaper reporter, you sure get into a lot of trouble.”

“Always have.”

“Why is that?”

“Trouble is my business.”

“I think I heard that line somewhere before.”

“It's the title of a Philip Marlowe short story by Raymond Chandler.”

“Marlowe was a private detective,” she said, “so trouble
was
his business. The business of a journalist is to report the news.”

“You really want to get into this?”

“I do. And none of your jokes.”

I drained my coffee and waved Charlie over for a refill.

“You know how most reporters spend their days, Yolanda?”

“Tell me.”

“They regurgitate lies spewed by politicians. They interview self-serving celebrities. They write features about the nutty lady who has fifty cats or the coot who's amassed the state's largest ball of string. And they cover public meetings as if they matter, creating the illusion that democracy is going on.”

“Isn't it?”

“Of course not. When the political stakes are high or there's big money to be made, deals are cut out of sight over whiskey and cigars. Or sometimes, cocaine. Journalists try to convince themselves that their jobs are noble and exciting, but mostly the work is pointless and boring.”

“If that's how you feel, why'd you get into it in the first place?”

“Because it wasn't always this way,” I said. “In the good old days, which weren't all that long ago, the job was a license to dig out the truth behind the facade, to expose incompetence and corruption, to explain how the world really works. Now, outside of a few big-city metros like
The Washington Post
and
The New York Times
, news organizations don't have the staff—or the balls—to do much of that anymore. Hell, even the big boys don't do as much of it as they used to.”

“So you're a dinosaur,” she said.

“That's what my boss keeps telling me.”

“But he lets you keep at it?”

“No, he doesn't. He buries me in press releases and assigns me to write weather stories about stuff readers could find out for themselves if they looked out the window. The velociraptor act is on my own time now.”

“Does he know what you've been up to?”

“I haven't got around to telling him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he'd order me to stop.”

“Maybe it's time you confided in him,” she said.

“Why would I want to do that?”

She picked up her cup and sipped some coffee before deciding how to answer.

“Usually, I tell murder suspects to keep their mouths shut,” she said, “but most of them don't have the big megaphone you've got to get your story out. I think your best move now is to get out ahead of this.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“By putting what you know about the Alfanos, the bribery, and the Templeton murder in the paper.”

“I don't have it nailed down yet.”

“Are you close?”

“That depends.”

“On what?” she asked.

“On whether I can talk a few reluctant sources into going on the record.”

Charlie dropped the check on the table. I beat Yolanda to it and threw down a twenty. The Capital Grille was out of my price range, but I could spring for half a grapefruit without taking out a loan.

“How about dinner later this week?” I said.

“I don't think so.”

“Oh. Did I say something stupid again?”

“It's not that.”

“What, then?”

“The things you told me last time? That stuff about why you value the differences between us?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm still thinking about it.”

 

31

Next morning, I punched the clock and was promptly summoned to Twisdale's office.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Later, Chuckie. There are some people I've gotta see first.”

“No. We have to do this now.”

I shrugged and flopped into the chair across from his desk.

“What's on your mind?”

“A couple of little things,” he said.

“Like?”

“Like why the cops dragged you out of my newsroom again.”

“What do you know about the murder at the Omni,” I asked.

“Just this,” Chuckie said. He folded
The Dispatc
h to the metro front and pointed to a one-column headline. The story beneath it was thin on details, saying only that Romeo Alfano, a businessman from Atlantic City, had been found shot to death in his hotel room and that police were investigating.

“The Providence cops questioned me about it,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I might have been the last person to see him alive.”

“Are you a suspect?”

“The homicide twins seem to think so.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah.”

“Who is this Romeo Alfano?”

“A mobster who's been bribing state legislators to change their votes on the sports gambling bill.”

“Jesus! And you've been looking into this behind my back?”

“On my own time, yeah.”

Chuckie stared at me for a moment. His eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles clenched. When he spoke, his voice was an octave lower.

“Okay, Mulligan. You're going to have to start trusting me. I need you to turn your cards over and tell me everything.”

“Not yet. I need a few days to tie up loose ends first.”

“We don't have a few days. If corporate gets wind that you're a suspect in a murder case, they'll want me to fire you. I won't be able to protect you unless I know what the hell's going on.”

“Protect
me
? You're just trying to cover your ass.”

“That too,” he said.

The determined look on his face made it clear that I was out of options. Reluctantly, I ran it all down for him: The suitcase full of cash pried from Lucan Alfano's lap. The list of public officials found in his pocket. His attempts to bribe Lisa Pichardo, Joseph Longo, and Phil Templeton. My confrontation with Mario Zerilli and Lucan Alfano's brother Romeo at the Omni. New Jersey state cops' assertion that the Alfanos were fixers for Atlantic City casinos. And my suspicion that Mario had killed both Romeo Alfano and Templeton.

With each revelation, Twisdale's eyes got a little bigger. When I was done, he put his hands on his head, leaned back in his chair, and studied the ceiling.

“That's one hell of a story,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“How much of it can you prove?”

“With a little more time, most of it. Maybe all of it.”

“Why did you keep me in the dark about this?”

“Because you would have called me off.”

“You got that right.”

“Coward.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Do you have any idea how lucky you've been, Mulligan?”

“It's not luck, Chuckie. I'm good at this.”

“I know you are. What I mean is that you got to work here back in the days when
The Dispatch
was a
real
newspaper.”

“How would you know what it was like?”

“I've been reading through the archives,” he said. “Twenty, fifteen, even ten years ago, there was something amazing in the paper almost every day. Great beat reporting. Remarkable explanatory journalism. Superb storytelling. Blockbuster exposés.” He sighed. “You have no idea how much I wish I could have been part of that.”

At first, I thought he was blowing smoke. Then I caught the way his eyes lit up. I slid two cigars out of my pocket, clipped the ends, and tossed him one. He surprised me by picking it up and sticking it in his jaw. I gave him a light, then got mine going. We smoked in silence for a couple of minutes, blatantly disregarding both company policy and state law. Reporters stationed at nearby desks stared at us openmouthed through the aquarium's glass walls.

“I know you don't respect me,” Twisdale said. “If I were in your shoes, I'd probably feel the same way. But you don't understand the pressure I'm under. Corporate doesn't give a rat's ass about covering the news or serving the public. All they care about is the bottom line.”

“You knew that when you took this job,” I said. “It's what you signed up for. But maybe it's not too late to grow some balls.”

“It is if I want to keep working here.”

“A paycheck means more to you than self-respect?”

Twisdale grabbed the picture frame on his desk and turned it around to show me his pretty blond wife and three towheaded little boys. “No,” he said, “but they do.” He frowned and slowly shook his head. “Besides, I don't have the resources to let you run around chasing long shots.”

“Like I said, it was all on my own time.”

“Only if we don't count your bullshit sick days,” he said.

“Fair enough.”

“But this isn't a long shot anymore, is it.”

“No.”

He leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. Maybe trying to decide what to do about me. Maybe searching for some courage up there.

“What's left to do before you can write?”

“I need to get a few key sources to go on the record.”

“Then I guess you better get cracking.”

This time I didn't feel the urge to crack his head.

“One last thing,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Don't tell anybody else what you're working on. If word gets out around the building, I'll get pressure from the business side to kill the story.”

“Why?”

“That super PAC you say is funded by Atlantic City casinos? They've scheduled a series of full-page ads that start on Thursday.”

“And if my story pisses them off,” I said, “they might pull them.”

“Exactly.”

“You're prepared to take the heat for that?”

“I'm thinking about it,” Twisdale said. “You know the saying—‘Act now, apologize later.'”

As I walked back to my desk, I wondered. Chuckie-boy had shown some guts today, but would he stand up when the heat came down?

*   *   *

Lisa Pichardo sat behind her desk in the House minority leader's office, arms folded defensively across her chest.

“No way, Mulligan,” she said. “You promised everything I gave you would stay off the record.”

“That was before,” I said. “Things have changed.”

“In what way?”

“The bribery story's going to break any day now. If you go on the record, people will know you blew the whistle. Otherwise, they might think you took the money.”

“I still don't like it,” she said. “I've been threatened. If my name comes out, somebody might come after me.”

“Your name's going to come out anyway once the state police make their case,” I said. With the Alfanos both dead, Parisi's bribery investigation probably had stalled, but I was hoping Pichardo didn't realize that.

“How can I be sure you'll be fair with me?” she asked.

“Haven't I always?”

She shook her head emphatically.

“You've made a lot of trouble for me over the years,” she said. “For one thing, I didn't much like how I came off in that highway contract story last winter.”